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Pine
Needle Lullaby
Lying on my deck, swaddled in a bathrobe, face mask (pollen, you
know) and woolen scarf, I watch languid pines sway in the fall
wind sending pine needles pirouetting to the ground. All eight
of my wind chimes are tinkling like heaven’s harps. My
neighbor’s maple tree has erupted into molten lava and fading
flowers are bathed in the slanted golden light that precedes
death.
You know Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold can Stay”? That’s the
way autumn feels to me. Melancholy, reflective, I ponder the
people I have loved and lost . . . my future in these volatile
times. And I begin to retreat, to go within, to prepare for the
hibernation of the soul which comes with winter.
Fall is a bittersweet time, a dark chocolate covered cherry that
tingles with expectation and sours with endings. One that
dissolves as quickly as the sycamore leaves tap dance down the
street.
Pudgy little brown birds have begun to arrive and as I write
this, a chickadee and a sparrow alight on my fence, give me the
beady brown eye and flit off in search of bugs.
Prehistoric pelicans are winging their way south for the winter.
The bears are padding their caves.
Work will cease by early November, after which everyone will
claim they can’t complete things (hire, plan, etc.) until “after
the holidays.”
People will get sick and take to their beds. And promises will
be deferred until January.
I think, this season, I will not have fisticuffs with Mother
Nature. Instead, I will follow my inclination to dream and
meditate; to nurse my frozen heart that awaits the melting kiss
of spring and all things green . . .
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